Independent Scotland could keep the pound says Lib Dem’s Moore

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AN independent Scotland could keep the pound, the Westminster government said yesterday.

Scottish Secretary Michael Moore appeared to go beyond George Osborne’s previously guarded comments on the matter when he told the BBC that he did not think there would by a “legal problem” with retaining sterling, but questioned its practicality.

“You do have to pretty quickly think about the consequences of who would set interest rates, about what it would mean for your spending plans and your borrowing plans and routinely when I’ve heard senior nationalists, including the First Minister [Alex Salmond] asked about this point, they don’t actually get onto that.”

Meanwhile Alistair Darling, the former Labour chancellor, has told fellow Scots they will be take a “massive risk” over their economic future if they vote for independence.

“The downsides are immense, the risks are amazing, the uncertainties I just don’t think are worth gambling on,” he told The Guardian newspaper.